Armed Forces Act (Continuation) Order 2017

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl. He brings nautical experience to our discussions but I bring rather more of an Army bias. He is also a relative newcomer to this House. As a relative new boy myself, I note that your Lordships’ House has taken a bit of a kicking recently in the press but, having sat through most of this debate, I have been extraordinarily impressed by some of the excellent speeches, which have been interesting, well-informed and informative. It is of course invidious to mention names but I shall mention in particular the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, who I thought spoke particularly well. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State and indeed the chairman of the Select Committee from the House of Commons are both here listening. I hope that I can live up to that high standard, though I rather doubt it.

I shall make two points. The first relates to the standing of the Armed Forces, which was partially covered by the noble Earl. The second is about the current international situation, which was mentioned in the Motion, and our preparedness for it.

It is a cliché to say—quite rightly—that our Armed Forces are highly regarded. When I was working in the MoD, they were probably more highly regarded than they ever had been in my lifetime, largely because of Afghanistan, Iraq and the tragedies there. To digress, a friend of mine in the United States army told me that, after Vietnam, he flew back into Los Angeles airport and, as he walked out in uniform, he was spat at. I am glad to say that we have never got to that stage here and I hope we never do. In the same vein, about a dozen years ago, when there were elections to the US Senate, it was said that there was no elected senator with a child who had served or was serving in the armed forces. Of course, there were people such as McCain who had served themselves. In contrast, on the Benches here and in the other place, there are people who not only have themselves served in the Armed Forces but who continue to have connections through children and relations who serve. This means that we are closer, in many ways, to our Armed Forces than is the case in some other places. I am glad to say that it remains a respected career and attracts a high quality of both officers and men. It remains a profession of which to be proud. Parents can be proud if their children join the Armed Forces.

[Lord Hunt of Chesterton]

And women, indeed.

[Lord Robathan]

The noble Lord is, of course, an academic. It used to be “mankind” but now, apparently, one has to say “personkind”. When my son rang up and announced that he was thinking of joining the Armed Forces, his mother said, “Over my dead body”. She has changed her mind now, I am glad to say. It is not by chance that we have respected professionals in the Armed Forces. When I served, there used to be something called KAPE—keeping the Army in the public eye. This is very important. Unfortunately, with the reduction in the Armed Forces over a number of years, we have seen, for instance, good barracks being sold. I recall Chelsea. Hounslow, also in London, is on the market as, I understand, is Woolwich. Nobody quite knows what is going on with Hyde Park barracks. The point is that if you consign your Armed Forces personnel to the back of an industrial estate, the respect they are afforded is less. Messes have been contracted out. What used to be regarded as a home, particularly for officers, is no longer seen as such. Pay and conditions have continuously been eroded over many years.

We have heard about morale. Morale is a bit amorphous. If you listen to some people, it is always low. I used to think that if soldiers were not complaining about something, they probably were not happy. To put it mildly, recruitment and retention are not good at the moment. We have an Army that is not recruited to its 82,000 target. I urge the Government to look at this whole situation. It is not about people pitying poor soldiers who have seen awful things in Afghanistan and Iraq, as we sometimes hear. They do not want pity; they want to be respected. It is not about politically correct issues and diversity, nor about bad conditions in which people live, although these too are important. It is about feeling valued and respected by the society one serves. It is about being challenged by adventure and excitement, seeing a future career and lifestyle that can offer a decent life for oneself and one’s family, and doing a worthwhile job. This means the Government seeing the value of some things rather than just looking at the cost.

My second point, which has been covered much more in this debate, is our response to the current international situation. I was particularly impressed by the tour de force from the Minister about the strategic threats we face, which was backed up by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. I know that my noble friend the Minister is in a rather difficult position, but we all value his support for defence. I was part of the SDSR 2010, together with my noble friend Lord Astor and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. The noble Lord, Lord Touhig, is absolutely right. It was driven by costs. Some people tried to deny it at the time, but it was about cutting costs. I say to the three Labour Ministers who have spoken so far today, that the situation we inherited in 2010 across the public finances was dire. There is no question about that, nor any point in arguing about it. Not only was it dire but, in defence, there were unfunded procurement programmes going forward which we estimated at some £30 billion to £60 billion. It was an estimate, since nobody could tell us what the funding was because it was so chaotic.

The last, coalition Government, and Philip Hammond in particular—for whom I worked—brought defence spending under proper control. They should be congratulated on that and on the SDSR as well. They had the assistance of the Liberal Democrats. I see the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in his place. He was also there with me. SDSR 2015 is a step in the right direction but we need to go a lot further. Other people have said so too.

My noble friend Lord Jopling, who is not now in his place, talked about Russia. I will not cover other strategic threats but let us home in on that. Nobody has been held to account for the murder of Litvinenko 10 years ago—not a mile from here—nor for the downing of a civilian airliner over Ukraine by Russian missiles. The Baltic states have a joke: “Visit Russia, before Russia visits you”. They are worried, and with good reason. The other threat, closely linked to Russia, is from cyberattacks. We have heard about whatever happened during the US election. We have heard about Montenegro. These attacks are non-stop, asymmetric and will grow.

I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that the situation has changed. When I joined the Army in 1974, we had a complement of 150,000 or so. Some 55,000 were in West Germany, with tanks, missiles, tactical nuclear weapons and aircraft facing the East. We spent about 5% of our GDP on defence throughout the 1980s. Now it is around 2%. I will not dwell on how this is accounted for. We have only a vestige of the BAOR left. We do not expect invasion forces crossing the Elbe or the Rhine, but we should expect asymmetric warfare, as it is called, be it by “little green men” such as we saw in Crimea and the Ukraine, or by undermining the Baltic states by winding up their Russian minorities. We should remember that the Baltic states are guaranteed by Article 5 and an attack on one is an attack on all.

As a country, we need a bigger stick, as does NATO. Much has been heard about how NATO’s spending should rise; of course it should. We need to up our spending as well. I pay tribute to the Government—although it might not seem like it—and especially to current Defence Ministers. I know what they think, but we need to go further. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had rather a bad week last week, but I believe he understands the need to spend more on defence.

We need to educate our public, our politicians and government Ministers that defence is the first duty of government. There is always the danger that old men—and there are quite a few in this place—look back through rose-tinted spectacles at the good old days. We need a balance and to understand history. We could draw analogies with the 1930s, to which the noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord King, have referred. There is some validity in this—disarmament, isolationism, aggression and invasion of small parts of countries, such as the Sudetenland. I urge my Government to up defence spending so that the Armed Forces feel valued; so it becomes an attractive career for young men—and women; and, most of all, to ensure that British interests are safe in this deteriorating world situation. The first duty of government has always been the defence of the realm. We all need to remember that.